Jacksonians to consider $65M school bond

Gov. Phil Bryant and Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba have announced an alternative plan to a state takeover of the troubled Jackson Public Schools.
Geoff Pender

Jackson residents will vote Tuesday on a $65 million school bond referendum. School officials have proposed repairs for more than 50 schools, including Bailey APAC. The building is one of Jackson Public Schools' oldest sites.(Photo: JPS Communications)

A day before thousands of students return to the Capital City’s schools, Jacksonians will decide whether to approve a $65 million bond referendum that supporters say will provide funds to make repairs at the district’s aging facilities.

Sixty percent of the votes cast Tuesday must be in favor of the borrowing in order for the referendum to pass.

When it comes to property taxes to support public schools, data from the state Department of Education show Jackson Public Schools has the highest levy in the state (roughly $85 for every $1,000 of assessed value of property).

Sharolyn Miller, the chief financial officer for JPS, said the measure when compared to what homeowners pay in property taxes will not come at an additional cost.

Without the bond issue taxpayers were set to have some relief this year because the district made its last payment in February on a debt service tied to a previous bond issue.

JPS is asking voters to agree to a swap of sorts by seeking residents’ approval to allow the taxes that once went toward paying down the district’s debt service to go toward capital improvements.

In this file photo, students wait to be picked up outside Walton Elementary School. The school is one of more than 50 campuses slated for renovations if a $65 million bond issue passes Tuesday.(Photo: Justin Sellers/The Clarion-Ledger)

With an estimated 26,000 students enrolled and 54 schools, JPS is Mississippi’s second-largest school district, and proposed projects are listed for each of the district's schools.

School Board President Jeanne Middleton Hairston says 75 percent of the district’s schools are between 50 and 100 years old.

Last year, board members voted to shut down four of the district’s elementary schools, saying they were too costly to repair amid declining enrollment, and an information page on JPS’ website warns the district will not be able to make needed repairs at its remaining schools if the bond issue fails.

“The heating ventilation and air-conditioning systems at Callaway and Forest Hill high schools are beyond repair and could fail at any moment,” Hairston wrote in an editorial to the Clarion Ledger.

She went on to detail concerns that some of the district’s schools were out of compliance with a federal law outlining required accommodations in certain facilities for individuals with disabilities, a problem the district said it will address with bond issue funds.

Conditions at the district’s schools were enough to bring students to the Capitol during the 2018 legislative session to ask for more funding. Lawmakers have consistently failed to meet appropriations targets set by Mississippi's school funding formula. The shortfall this year for JPS is $12.2 million, according to the Parents' Campaign, a public schools advocacy group.

“I’ve grown up attending schools where the structural integrity is questionable, where some bathroom stalls are empty because old pipes are hard to fix ... where you pray while walking up the stairs because the railing fell off,” Murrah High School student Kaitlyn Fowler testified. “I’ve taken important tests in 60-degree classrooms and 90-degree classrooms. I’ve bought my weight in hand sanitizer because soap is rare.”

District officials have also said the borrowing is needed to boost JPS’ accreditation status, which was downgraded in part because of structural issues after more than 100 pages of a 2017 investigative audit cited JPS for a range of facility problems, including broken bathroom sinks and water fountains, windows that were too small to allow students and teachers to escape in the event of an emergency, exposed electrical wires and poor drainage systems.

JPS will have to make the repairs in order to be restored to good standing.

A common tenet surrounding the bond issue is that students deserve to learn in high-quality facilities, and there’s been little vocal push back to the idea that the repairs are needed.

There has been skepticism, however, of what will happen with the funds.